Mocha is our pick pup from our 2012 breeding of Caliber v Wildhaus "Raven" to Body Jipo-Me. This combination is a total outcross, a mix of primarily West German working lines through Raven and Czech bloodlines through Body. For Raven's last litter we were interested in crossing her to Czech lines to help maintain the balance of drives Raven herself exemplified while bringing in some genetic diversity to help open up the pedigree to allow for a wider range of future breeding choices with the offspring as our breeding program moves forward.

After looking at a multitude of potential candidates, we chose Body himself for the very simple reason that we like him... a lot. Nope, he's not a high scoring competition schutzhund dog. What he is is an excellent German Shepherd. A strong, supremely self confident dog with tremendous presence, hardness, courage and natural protective instinct, coupled with excellent nerve, judgment, and clear headedness. His drives are strong and well balanced, but not extreme. While more aloof than social in his interactions with strangers, he is completely neutral, approachable and socially stable, not sharp or suspicious. Calm and settled when appropriate, he is a dog who thinks before he acts, but when action is required will do so with purpose, intensity and total commitment.

Body hails from old Czech border patrol lines and the traits he possesses, and which we value so much in him, are seen throughout the genetics represented in his pedigree. He is linebred on Cordon An-Sat, one of the greatest of the Czech stud dogs, with one of those lines going through one of Cordon's best sons, Ory Danaru. Body's dam was sired by the legendary 6xWUSV competitor Norbo Ben-Ju, who's pedigree contains some of the pillars of Eastern Block GSD breeding, including Car z Kostolianskej cesty, sire of more Eastern European World Team competitors than any other, and Titus z Pohranicni Straze, one of the most influential stud dogs of all time within the Czech and Slovakian border patrol breeding programs. Not only are Car and Titus legends in their own right, but the combination of these two bloodlines together is often referred to as the "Magic Cross", and is highly coveted by those seeking to produce high level working dogs. The rest of Body's pedigree is equally strong, containing a wealth of solid, old working dog genetics from the not just the Czech lines but also the old DDR and West Germany.

In essence, Body exemplifies true, old style German Shepherd temperament; drive to work, the power and willingness to rise to any occasion, coupled with the thinking nature and excellent discernment abilities that have made this breed the most versatile working dog in the world. Sadly, many of these traits that were considered part and parcel of the GSD in the past are no longer easy to find these days, and we are very pleased to have found them in Body and to have had the opportunity to combine his excellent genetics with Raven's to produce this exceptional litter.

Mocha herself shows excellent promise and an interesting blend of traits from her parents. Physically she is a fantastic representative of the breed with medium size, excellent and balanced structure, gorgeous pigment, and great speed and athleticism. Temperament wise, while we can clearly see both Raven and Body's sides of the family represented, she definitely takes a bit more after her father. She is a cocky, pushy, strong willed young girl with much hardness and confidence, uncanny intelligence and problem solving ability, and a bit of an independent streak. Prey, food and hunt drives are very strong without being over the top, and she shows excellent intensity while maintaining great clarity, self control, and responsiveness.

Mocha is a very instinctive dog and excels especially in tasks which allow her to most utilize her natural drives in a somewhat independent manner. She shows a strong herding inclination at home with our horses and chickens, and in training she performs the strongest and most naturally in tracking and protection. She has tremendous tracking talent with very little training required. Put simply, she loves tracking just for the joy of tracking and does it naturally with great enthusiasm, accuracy and tenacity. In protection she has a high level of defense drive and a strong civil side to balance out her prey, making for work that is powerful and serious with dominating barking, hard grips and strong fighting behavior to overpower the helper. While completely approachable and stable in social settings, she has a natural suspicion and aloofness toward strangers and a strong instinct to protect her home and people and these instincts carry over onto the protection field where she clearly means business and is not playing a game. Off the field she is a perfect house dog who settles easily at home, gets along well with all other dogs and animals, is very affectionate with her own people and appropriately social with guests.

We are excited to see how she continues to mature and develop in training and we have high hopes that Mocha will one day follow in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother by becoming another great producer for our breeding program.